Author: Willis P. Whichard

Justice Whichard earned an A.B. and J.D. from the University of North Carolina before earning an LL.M. and S.J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He began his career in law as a clerk to Justice (later Chief Justice) William H. Bobbitt of the North Carolina Supreme Court (1965-66). He was later a practicing attorney with the Durham law firm of Powe, Porter, Alphin and Whichard (1966-80). In 1980, he was appointed, and later elected, a judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals. In 1986, he became an Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, serving until his retirement in 1998. In 1999, he was named Dean of the Norman A. Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University. He retired from the University in 2006. He is the author of Justice James Iredell (Durham, 2000).

The second, and to date the last, North Carolinian to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Alfred Moore was appointed in Fall 1799 to succeed Justice James Iredell after the first Supreme Court justice from North Carolina had died. Before then, Moore had battled Tories and the British during the American Revolutionary War and had served in the North Carolina House of Commons. After being nominated twice by the state Senate to run for U.S. Senator, Moore was defeated both times by Republican opponents: Timothy Bloodworth and Jesse Franklin. Moore was considered one of the state’s outstanding attorneys and leading Federalists.

James Iredell (1751-1799) was a leader of the North Carolina Federalists during the state ratification debates of the federal Constitution. Following ratification, President George Washington appointed the North Carolinian to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served until his death in 1799. His best-known opinion is his dissent in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) that provided the basis for the subsequent adoption of the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.